


Twelve Hours: Invasion

by brokenEisenglas



Series: The London Purge [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Purge (2013)
Genre: BAMF!Anthea, Gen, Non-Explicit, PTSD Sherlock, Part 2, The Purge, The first few hours, Violence, pissed off John, worrying Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4862105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenEisenglas/pseuds/brokenEisenglas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The London government has decided to allow for its first Purge. The Baker Street Boys have made it to the Holmesian mansion, but... shit happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve Hours: Invasion

**Author's Note:**

> Wow... Been waiting for this one for a while. May have to go back and rewrite it: did the writing in one go while tired. But... I had the muse. I am American, so, there will be discrepancies in language. Hopefully, that won't be too bothersome.
> 
> I will say that I had a lot of fun with this part. Have two more to do. Hope this works with the previous. I had originally planned to make it much more gory, but, decided to stick with a lower rating. (I have another story and a half that is much more graphic... will up the angst there instead).
> 
> Warnings: violence, murderous thoughts, PTSD references

Last minute. The only way to explain the excruciating closeness of arrival before lock-down. With only two minutes before initiation, the two men and their car enter the gates, one wheel flat, back window cracked, front of the car dented in and smoking, the driver with a slight concussion. John rushes from the back seat as soon as the vehicle comes to a complete stop to help the driver from his place and into the mansion. Sherlock, slower than usual and not quite as graceful, steps out of the car, locks the doors (as if it will be of any use), and follows the doctor and his patient. Mycroft's shadow looms in the doorway, the look of worry unbidden and uncontrollable. Behind him, the lovely Anthea stands- _track pants, hair pulled back, black camisole, hidden knife, gun strapped to hip, ready to fight and flee_ \- and beside her, a disgruntled but relieved Gregory Lestrade.

"Bloody hell," Sherlock hears John grunt under his breath, just out of hearing distance for the trio waiting on them.

"Move, brother mine." Mycroft urges. "One minute and all hell-"

Behind him, Sherlock hears the rattle of metallic instruments on steel gates. His elder's eyes widen, and Sherlock hesitates no longer. He pushes John and the driver through the front door; makes Greg hurry to close and lock all windows and entrances as the shielding descends. Lights dim and all noise in the home ceases besides the heavy breathing of the eight six occupants.

"Is there anyone else here, brother?" His voice is kept low, preventing the obvious discomfort- _fear_ \- he feels from being heard. "We cannot have-"

The older man, breathing in deeply then releasing, nods his head once, assuring as much of their safety as he dare. "I have told all others to retreat to the governmental safe house. I..." he pauses, turning his head slightly, listening. Sherlock does the same as Lestrade walks over to the closest doorway, to the eastern wing. All occupants lighten their breaths, Anthea removing the clasp of her holster, eyes sharp.

Sherlock feels the approach of panic. _Someone else is here. Someone... uninvited_. He reads the same thoughts on his brother's and the others' faces. They all know.

"We aren't alone, are we?" John asks from his spot in front of the concussed driver.

_Obviously._

The lights cut completely out; the sounds outside the house becoming more prominent. Screams, howls, and rage-filled chants can be heard through the house's titanium reinforced protection. "Burn them!" "Kill them!" "Give us-"

"Mr. Holmes?"

For the first time, the driver of John and Sherlock's car speaks. His voice is tired and weak, but his eyes look like fire in the dark.

"Phillips?" Mycroft warily approaches. His deductions come at light speed, faster than any others'. Sherlock, not far behind his brother, too late realizes what is about to happen. "No... no."

From the east hallway, a gunshot rings out and a muffled cry echoes through the house's depths.

"GREG!" Mycroft runs towards the exit the other man had taken, colliding with the detective at the doorway. His hands find Lestrade's face, checking, hoping, pleading for the other man's safety. "Oh, God... gods. Please..."

Gregory pushes Mycroft's hands away and stalks towards the man on the leather recliner. Dr. Watson has backed away, standing unconsciously between Sherlock and this other man; he has his weapon pulled and at his side, ready to raise and fire but attempting civility. _My conscience..._

The pistol whip is brutal. Blood spurts from the wound as soon as it opens. Driver Phillip's nose crunches, and a tooth shatters. Lestrade swings again and once more, knocking the man unconscious if not eventually killing him.

Mycroft Holmes stands above the crumpled body as Anthea hides her mobile and John fully preps himself with supplies in pockets and weapon at the ready. Greg drags the limp body from the living area into the guest restroom, the first door on the right in the east wing hall. Sherlock, frozen in place, attempts to calm himself, breathing rhythmically and systematically. He knows how this night will end. He knows what is about to happen. He knows...

"It's begun."

Lestrade returns to the room, sullen. He looks guilty, angry, and shamed. Everyone aware and present knows: he missed the kill shot.

"Man or woman?" Mycroft asks. Shouldn't he know? "Was it Lou-anne?"

Greg shakes his head negatively. _No,_ Sherlock thinks. Had to have been...

"Manderlin, sir."

_The butler._

Outside, a megaphone calls for the attention of the crowd, size unknown, to settle and listen.

" _Calm yourselves! Animals, all of you. We all know why we are here. *a chuckle as the crowd hollers and whistles* We have all been slighted by the Holmeses in some way, haven't we? All made to suffer! Want! Struggle! But, no more! NO MORE! TONIGHT IS OUR NIGHT! OUR WAY! *the crowd responds unruly* SILENCE! Tonight... tonight is about revenge. Tonight is about... cleaning our conscience, our innate 'needs'."_

Inside, the sickness felt in the stomach of the occupants is palpable.

"Where is the weapon storage, Mycroft?" John growls. His body rigid, he follows the silent Holmes into the west wing. Quietly, they make their way to Mycroft's hidden storage. Lestrade stands closer to Anthea as she watches the younger Holmes, who attentively listens to the speaker outside. His stomach rolls. He _knows_ that voice. He was _int_ _imately_ acquainted with it at one time.

-0-0-0-0

"Victor?"

The other man, tall, dark, handsome, of royal Persian descent, from royal blood and _very_ monetarily stable, "Yes?"

Sherlock sighs, dreading the conversation surely to follow. "This won't work."

-0-0-0-0

" _Not only are we here to cleanse ourselves... we are here to cleanse this city, this COUNTRY from the Holmesian scum!"_

Tiptoeing towards the youngest man, Anthea hesitantly places a hand on his shoulder. He jolts, focusing on her face, the fear utterly visible on his face, in his posture. She places a hand in his, her face stoic, expression near unreadable.

_Take it._

Sherlock complies, popping the tablet.

"We are soldiers," her eyes are cold as she says, "and every shot is a kill shot. No questions."

_Kill them all._

"Is that an order?" He asks her.

"Dead men don't take orders."

Greg watches the exchange, surprised by the fluency, the understanding.

"Don't they?"

Anthea smirks, the dead look leaving her eyes and the heart that she has shining through. "Of course not."

Like the Bringer of Death, the rattle of ascending metal sheets forebodes the fate they may be subjected to.

_...kill them all._

Anthea leads the other men down the corridors of the East Wing, away from John and Mycroft (something in Sherlock, possibly despair, rebels against this decision). She expertly guides them from hall to hall, weapons raised. Lestrade's detective training taking over as he quickly, expertly checks each room passed for possible intruders.

Far behind them, like hell's demons, the sounds of yells and screams lap at their feet. Up stairs, to the next floor, Anthea leads them. Sherlock where to, but Lestrade: "Hey! Where we goin'? We don't have time-"

Anthea pulls a brass coat hanger in a miniature library, and a wall opens to them. Behind it, at least seven choices of guns, four military edition knives, and countless other trinkets and handheld weaponry.

"What's your poison?"

Greg whoofs out air, preventing himself from whistling.

"No wonder Mycroft keeps you around."

Sherlock thinks her smile is actually beautiful, when she allows herself the luxury. He slips past the detective and the PA, choosing two hunter's knives, a pea-pistol, and .09 mil handgun with extra rounds.

Having collected as much as they could or wished to carry, she closes the hidden room from the inside, and calls up an old lift, metal manual doors and 'quietened' chains and cables, rickety and rusty.

"It's been a while since, well, no use for it until now."

Sherlock remembers the stories about his old home: hidden passages, out-of-service lifts, secret rooms, haunted floors. He could only remember one instance of haunting, unsure of its context then and now. No time to reconsider. They enter the ancient contraption and descend. Through the walls, they can barely hear the destruction. There would be no escape once found. A slow death. A long death... torturous.

_The jingling of chains and dripping of frigid water, cold floor at his feet, days of silence after days of noise, the smell of sweat, piss, and... iron, metallic smell, crusting, shaking, shivering... the rolling table, rancid breath, musk... the whip._

"Hey! Sherlock. Gotta stay with us, mate." Greg has his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, a light pressure pulling the consultant from the receding depths of his mind. "Come on. No time to, as John says, 'dick around'. No clue where he picked that up from."

Sherlock naturally responds, "American and British patrol group while serving in Kandahar."

Greg grunts in acknowledgement.

Sherlock has lost track of where they are in the old, four floor mansion. The ground and second floors have been commandeered by enemies, the basement more than likely being raided now, and the subbasement remaining hidden. He has no idea where John and Mycroft are...

The gunshot is swift, nearly silent. The searing pain in his leg blinding him from locating the shooter. The thud of a body and gurgling of lost breath, he realizes someone has slit the killer's throat. From his kneeling position on the floor, he sees Anthea returning, walking towards him, wiping a blade on her track pants. She looks slightly more disheveled but otherwise unfazed.

"I have been given one objective," she tells him as she helps Greg tighten a belt around the top of his thigh. "You will survive this night, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock isn't so sure about her certainty.

From the West Wing, John, like the sleuth's blogger, covertly follows the woman ahead of him. Her breaths are shallow, quick; her body is fluid. She is on the hunt, but, as of yet, unaware of being the hunted. The silencer on the end of his gun whispers, begging to be used. Revenge.  _Rache_. 

Mycroft had disappeared. Taken, John assumes. Wanted for information; valuable until the capture of his younger brother and, assumedly, the rest of the entourage of the Holmesian estate. The "group" of idiots had taken the living area on the ground floor as a central hub, not quite aware of the extent of the size of the mansion. Already, John had found three hidden passages, having listened to the Holmes parents those few Christmases ago.

So, he continues to stalk Mycroft's other driver: Lou-anne. She should have left along with the rest of the house staff. Good paycheck, good treatment, and, yet, she hunts her prey unawares.

All goes smoothly until she abruptly stops, halting her steps and twisting like the whipping of hair in the wind. John is quicker, still. The shot is perfect. The bullet passing clean through the eyes and out the back of the skull and into the plaster wall.

The adrenaline in John's system keeps him going. It drives him forward, a killing machine.

These intruders have broken the law and disobeyed regulations. Invading an immune official's home and attacking said official and family: they would all pay. Retired army Captain John H. Watson of the Fifth North Umberland Fusiliers and Ex-army doctor, survivor of war and training at Saint Bartholomew's hospital would kill them all.

Every last one of them.

On the ground floor, Mycroft Holmes takes the beatings. He recedes into his world, watching the treatment as though one in the crowd awaiting his turn. The blows are meant to hurt, not maim or kill. They wait. They watch. They hope for the downfall of a kingdom.

He will not give them the satisfaction. The heir has been evacuated (he hopes to believe), and the King refuses to give in to the pressures of the immoral masses.

_I should never have allowed this._

Anthea leads the way as Greg helps a bleeding yet compliant Sherlock follow.

"What did you give him?" Lestrade's concern has increased as the time has passed. The young man had long lost the ability to refuse whatever treatment done to him, his state almost catatonic.

"It won't hurt him. Not even with his wound." Anthea peeks around a corner, staring into the blackness, makes the decision, and gestures for Lestrade to follow. Into the blackness, the cannot see each other, only aware by sound. One floor up, the visible wares are assaulted, but the subbasement is left alone. "He will be safer," she grunts as she opens a cavern in the wall, "in here."

"I'm not leaving him here." The detective's voice rises in pitch, unbelieving. "He's bleeding and-"

"He is vulnerable and of no use to us. Put him here. Two hours has passed, and, if we are lucky, we can clear the house before 'dawn'."

"Anthea, or... whatever your name is, look, I don't think-"

The punch is swift and direct, painless until the blood flow begins. Lestrade is stunned. Anthea is hardened.

She thinks of all he has done for her. How often he has saved her life. How he gave her a career worth doing, a mission in life. She thinks of the lonely nights, the drinks, the sorrow, the suffering, and the rehabilitation. She remembers the remission, the nightmares, the detoxes, and the doctor's visits. She knows the hidden fears, the locked and boarded sorrow and shame. She knows the heart in the concrete casing, beneath the ice, thawed.

"You have much to learn, D _etective Lestrade_. While Mr. Holmes has taken a fancy towards you, need I remind you of who his guard _truly_ is? I will not leave him to the masses. And, you," she points her finger at his chest and pushes, hard, "will be right to remember that _his_ life is worth more to me than any other in existence. Including," here she gestures to the younger Holmes, hidden in the secret room, "his little brother. Mycroft Holmes can exist without others; he, however, chooses to remain attached to his younger sibling. So, do not test me, Detective. You are of no value _to me._ "

The wall to the room is closed as the two ascend the hidden staircase. Mission: save Mycroft Holmes.

John rests in the grating, watching carefully. His doctor's eyes carefully examine the wounds from afar. Against all odds, he found a way, no, a better view from which to exterminate his targets. He has pushed aside his worry for Sherlock (for Mycroft shows no signs of fear) and continues to bide his time. He will kill them. That much is certain.

Mycroft listens to Victor as he hums. Some American pop song. How droll.

"You know," Victor begins, "I was sure that I would marry your brother. I was _so sure_ that Sherlock Holmes would, well," he chuckles, "become my _bitch_."

Antagonized, he takes the bait, anger flaring in him. "If you had so much as inappropriately _touched_ my brother, I would have-"

"You would have what, Mycroft? Killed me? Really? Is that the best you could do?" Victor Trevor smiles predatory. His eyes are glazed, drugs hampering his restrictions.

"I was going to say, 'removed your testicles, jarred them, showed them to you, then gutted you like the pig that you are'. But, yes. This would have eventually led to your demise."

The blow cracks a rib untouched. The anger has been flamed, oxygen to the coals; anger an incense on this dangerous eve. And, all John can do is watch from the shadows. Waiting. A voice in his mind, somewhere, tells him _just a little longer_. So, he waits.

With good intuition, too.

Where literature exaggerates the coming of the cavalry, John can now understand why. Not an exaggeration, he decides. As shots fly and bodies drop, John joins from his stance, body count climbing. Mycroft is pushed to the floor, Anthea laying over top of him, as Lestrade shoots from his place near the East Wing door frame. Black suited men flood the house, followed by a man in suit, tie, and Kevlar vest. His red hair is like a sun burning bright against the empty sky. He is recognizable, undoubtedly so.

Pushing the grating out of the way, John allows himself to fall to the floor, landing on the limp body of a fallen enemy. The body shifts just slightly, so he puts a bullet through the brain.

Looking at his watch, the Prince sighs. He looks tired, worn, weary.

Anthea has stood, allowing undercover paramedics to see to Mycroft. She gently approaches their uncalled on savior.

"How did you know?"

John had assumed her intervening. Surprised, he looks to her then the Prince.

"You shouldn't have drugged him."

Angry, John begins his wrathful approach. Dark suited men hold him back. Silence rings in his ears; white surrounds his vision. He needs to know. Where is he? What has she done? Drugged? What the hell did she give him? Where. IS. HE?!

Like the eternity that he feels, a limp and pale Sherlock is brought to him- _how much time had passed since his fit of anger? Why does Sherlock_ -

"Sherlock?" John naturally reaches out to touch his friend. His brows furrow when he doesn't get a response, then, he realizes that he himself is growing tired. Body going loose. Limp. "Bloody, fckin..."

Lestrade looks at the three men being lifted onto stretchers, then, as the medics roll them to the vehicles, he swings a fist at Anthea, who catches it and pulls him forward.

"I felt it coming off of you in waves." She says. "You should better control your anger."

"Bitch."


End file.
